He was released from prison this year after serving time for a 2002 attempted-robbery conviction in Middletown, New York.

He also was blamed for the death of his grandmother and X's widow, Betty Shabazz, in 1997 after he set fire to her Yonkers apartment. He was 12 at the time and was staying with her because his mother was having trouble handling him.

He pleaded guilty to the juvenile equivalents of second-degree manslaughter and second-degree arson and spent time in various juvenile centers, escaping at least twice but being recaptured.

He is the son of Qubilah Shabazz, who was 4 when she saw her father, a civil rights leader, shot to death in a Harlem ballroom in 1965.